


The Night Visitor

by caseyptah



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen, Halloween Special Episode, Shirley Jackson I am not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 06:10:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21239441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyptah/pseuds/caseyptah
Summary: A very special, and very short, Halloween episode of Voyager.





	The Night Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this one came from a dream, like all questionable fanfic. Consider yourself warned.
> 
> I am not a master of suspense like Helen8462, but she did a fantastic job of beta reading this one for me. Thank you for calling me out on my sentence fragments, and for forcing me to finally research the difference between lie and lay.

The young Vulcan boy lay motionless in his bed as the creature stood over him. No, not a creature so much as a presence: a dark, insistent pressure. The boy’s respiration was strained, and his eyes wide. The specter waited in silent expectation.

“Mother! Please come quickly!” Finally, the boy shouted, with only the smallest hint of fear in his tone.

The boy’s mother appeared, and the pressure dissipated instantly. She did not sit on the small bed, nor did she offer physical contact to the boy as he relayed his concerns. Her narrowed eyes relaxed as she reassured her son by the only logical method: explanation.

Young Tuvok had just experienced the _ vot’a_, the night visitor: a rare but not atypical occurrence in Vulcan children. Before the eighth year of a Vulcan’s life, the mesiofrontal cortex was the last part of the brain to become functional upon waking. It was possible for a young Vulcan mind, missing the protective walls of its logic center, to experience confusion for a few moments. This sometimes resulted in a brief hallucination. 

“Your eighth birthday is only forty-two days away,” she said to him. “It is therefore unlikely that you will experience the _ vot’a _ again.” The boy nodded solemnly, and his mother left.

But the _ vot’a _ came again, once before young Tuvok’s eighth birthday, and again only a few days later. Quite illogically, it continued to appear at irregular intervals, even when Tuvok was well into his eighth year and beyond. 

Tuvok did not inform his parents of these intermittent episodes, although it may have been logical to do so. Instead he endured the dark presence of the _ vot’a _ with a composure and maturity that would have satisfied his parents, had they known.

The _ vot’a _ followed Tuvok from youth into adulthood, from the Academy to the _ Excelsior _ and back to Vulcan. The presence maintained its intermittent visitation schedule during the rites of _ kolinahr_, and then followed him into his marital bedroom, into parenthood. 

It was T’Pel with whom he first shared his experiences; and it was T’Pel also who was the first to provide some clarity on what had continued to be an unsettling situation for Tuvok. “In accepting the inevitable, one finds peace.” 

And so Tuvok attempted to accept the inevitability of the night visitor, but in this endeavor he was not entirely successful. In those moments of visitation he was afflicted by a fear so visceral that even with the most conscientious of effort he could not relax his body, nor slow his breath. It was an uncomfortable situation for a Vulcan, and often Tuvok approached his meditative practice with extra vigor in the days following a visit from the _ vot’a_. 

Tuvok maintained silence on this matter, and simply would not allow the situation to affect his work. Thus Lieutenant Commander Tuvok was haunted in a way that none of his shipmates could ever have guessed. 

Today Tuvok was investigating an unusual incident in engineering. Lieutenant Nicolleti had been carrying an ODN recoupler in her left hand when the tool suddenly took to the air and flew, arcing around the warp core before hitting the wall with such force that it left a three centimeter dent in the durasteel. 

“Curious,” Tuvok said as he leaned down to examine the wall in question. “In order to create an indentation of this size the recoupler would have had to travel at an extremely high rate of speed.”

“At least three hundred kilometers per hour,” Lieutenant Torres commented from behind Tuvok, where she was standing with her arms crossed. “There’s no way Sue threw it.”

“Indeed, I do not believe she could have.” Tuvok stood and surveyed the area around the warp core. Lieutenant Nicoletti had already provided an extremely precise, if somewhat bizarre, account of the events, claiming that it felt as if the ODN recoupler had been pulled from her left hand. The internal sensor logs had noted only the loud noise produced as the recoupler made contact with the wall. All other engineering data at the time of the incident was normal.

Curious indeed.

Later that same day a hyperspanner went flying across engineering, striking the bulkhead directly beside Lieutenant Carey before falling to the carpet. Internal sensors indicated that the tool had been set down on the edge of a workstation in the moments before it took flight. 

Captain Janeway smiled as she read aloud those portions of Tuvok’s security report during their regular meeting the next day. “A three centimeter dent? B’Elanna must be furious.” She approved Tuvok’s request for a level four internal sensor sweep of deck eleven and moved on to the next item. 

Only a few hours later, several of Neelix’s absurd cooking implements came free from their hooks, sailed over the heads of three crewmen, and crashed into the windows on the opposite end of the mess hall. Those who observed the incident were noticeably shaken.

The next day, in the shuttlebay, a PADD that had been carefully stowed on a shelving unit flew upward with such speed it shattered against the shuttlebay ceiling, raining down bits of circuitry and glass on the terrified Ensigns Anderson and Suzuki. 

And so, the kinetic occurrences—now sometimes involving furniture and large appliances—increased both in frequency and in dramaturgy over the next several days. In lockstep with the increasing drama came an increase in visits to the EMH: anti-anxiety medication was prescribed at nearly thirty percent above the usual rate. The volume of the conversations in the mess hall fell by several decibels, while the pitch of each individual’s voice rose by at least forty-five hertz.

Tuvok ordered a level six sensor sweep, internal and external. When no anomalies could be found, he ordered Ensign Kim to conduct a full diagnostic on the sensors and then perform another level six sweep. 

“We need answers.” Captain Janeway was standing, her hands pressed against the conference table, her eyes surveying her senior officers. 

“Frankly, Captain, I’m at a loss,” the EMH said. “I would diagnose the entire crew with a shared psychotic disorder if I hadn’t seen my medical cart fly across sickbay yesterday.”

“The problem started in engineering; maybe we focus our efforts there,” Ensign Kim suggested. 

“I’ve already run every diagnostic I can think of; I even had Vorik pull up the floorplates yesterday,” Lieutenant Torres said. “If there’s an explanation for this, it’s not in engineering.”

“These acts seem violent, but nobody’s been hurt,” Commander Chakotay said. “With so many incidents in the past four days, shouldn’t we have seen at least one injury by now?”

“I’m not sure I’m willing to assign intention to these… supernatural occurrences just yet, Commander,” Captain Janeway said. 

“Maybe it’s a poltergeist,” Lieutenant Paris chimed in. All eyes turned to the chief helmsman. “It’s a type of ghost from Earth mythology. It’s known for moving furniture and objects. I think it’s usually associated with one person, like a manifestation of someone’s negative emotions.”

“You think this has to do with somebody’s bad mood?” Lieutenant Torres narrowed her eyes as she said it.

Ensign Kim frowned at his friends. “There has to be a logical explanation for this. And a logical solution.”

“Maybe a supernatural problem needs a supernatural solution.” Lieutenant Paris shrugged as he said it. Nobody noticed Tuvok stiffen slightly at that remark.

That night, having completed his reports for the seven additional kinetic incidents which had occurred before the end of his shift, Tuvok retired to bed at exactly 2200. 

At 0233, the night visitor stood over him. 

Tuvok’s eyes snapped open as the dark pressure made itself known, becoming more insistent as it always did. For over one hundred years now these two, _ vot’a _and Vulcan, the terror and the terrified, had perpetuated this simple stalemate. 

Tonight, for the first time, Tuvok sought entreaty to the _ vot’a_, attempting to send a message through the layers of space between them. 

_ There is something else here, something that should not be here. _

Tuvok paused, sensing the creature’s insistent pressure as it transformed into silent expectation. His ability to communicate with the night visitor was unexpected, yet somehow unsurprising. He took a deep breath, and sent a simple question to the _ vot’a_.

_ Can you help? _

A chilly, gleeful sense of agreement rushed forth from the _ vot’a_, and the presence disappeared.

What happened next was recorded by Lieutenant Larson in the night’s security logs.

_ Stardate 52690.3/0238 hours: Lieutenant Ashmore commed to report disturbing noises and flashes of light coming from the vicinity of the warp core. By the time myself and my team arrived on deck 11 the staff had already evacuated main engineering. They were all very upset, and described the noises as “lots of screaming” and “like the worst cat fight you’ve ever heard.” _

_ I took a security team into investigate, but other than a 6 degree celsius drop in temperature, everything appeared to be normal. Internal sensors had recorded the temperature drop, but not any sound or flashing lights. When I left the engineering personnel had begun another level three diagnostic on the engineering systems and the temperature was returning to normal. _

That was the last of the supernatural incidents. 

Well, at least until it appeared the next night, standing over Tuvok’s bed yet again. But this time Tuvok’s breathing stayed measured and even, and his body relaxed. He nodded once in the creature’s direction, and then closed his eyes, allowing himself to return to sleep in the presence of the _ vot’a_. 

The night visitor would have smiled, if it could.


End file.
